


hold my heart close

by elisela



Series: the trees of vermont [21]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blow Jobs, Buck & Sophia are Chaotic Disasters Together, Established Relationship, Family Bonding, M/M, Outdoor Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:48:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25862323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elisela/pseuds/elisela
Summary: “Can I come home now?”Eddie’s laugh is low over the phone line; Buck thinks about being next to him, having Eddie’s breath against his neck and body shake against his own, fingers gripping into Buck’s hips. “Did you even make it to baggage claim yet?”He looks up and down the aisle of the plane, a head taller than anyone else. “Yes.”“How easily you lie to me,” Eddie chastises teasingly. “You landed two and a half minutes ago.”
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Sophia Diaz, Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Series: the trees of vermont [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1790356
Comments: 16
Kudos: 197





	hold my heart close

**Author's Note:**

  * For [extasiswings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/extasiswings/gifts).



> This was not meant to be this long, but when Chapel gave me the "I'll pick you up at the airport" for a prompt, my mind immediately went to the Vermont verse Buck & Sophia fic no one has ever asked for but that I've been wanting to write.

“Can I come home now?”

Eddie’s laugh is low over the phone line; Buck thinks about being next to him, having Eddie’s breath against his neck and body shake against his own, fingers gripping into Buck’s hips. “Did you even make it to baggage claim yet?”

He looks up and down the aisle of the plane, a head taller than anyone else. “Yes.”

“How easily you lie to me,” Eddie chastises teasingly. “You landed two and a half minutes ago.”

Buck raises an eyebrow. “Stalking me, Diaz?” he asks, jamming the phone between his shoulder and cheek while he reaches to get his bag from the overhead compartment. 

“Only every day, Diaz,” Eddie says. “How was the flight? Enough room for your legs?”

“Funny you should mention that,” he says, motioning the woman across the aisle to go ahead of him. “I’m sure you have no idea how I was upgraded to first class.”

“Not a single clue,” Eddie says. He sounds like he’s smiling, and Buck’s heart aches for a moment. “You enjoyed it?”

“I did,” he says, shuffling along, nodding to the flight attendants as he leaves the plane, a blast of hot air hitting him in the few seconds it takes to step over the threshold to the jetway. “Thanks, Eddie. You didn’t have to.”

“Didn’t,” Eddie agrees. “Wanted to. You make it off the plane yet?”

He stops outside the gate, leaning against a wall. He knows it’s pitiful—codependent, definitely—but being without Eddie just doesn’t sit right with him anymore. The last time they’d spent a night away from each other was four years ago, when he and Chris had sent Eddie on a writer’s retreat for a long weekend when he had been talking about writing his first novel. “Yeah,” he says, lump in his throat. “I’m gonna go, Eds, if I keep talking to you I’m gonna get on a plane and come back.”

“Just keep me on the phone until you’re on the way to the hotel,” Eddie says. “I need to make sure you don’t stowaway on a cargo plane.”

“I’m not _that_ pathetic,” Buck says, pushing off the wall and making his way down the nearly empty corridor, carry-on trailing behind him. “I’d buy another ticket. First class, with your credit card.”

The airport is small and he’s making his way out of the secure zone in no time, listening to Eddie’s story about something Eleanor had told him and trying to think about anything other than laying on the couch with him and feeling him talk, the way his chest rises and falls when he leans back against Buck, the way he lets his fingers brush against Buck’s ankle. He doesn’t want to know how he’s going to feel at the end of the week if he misses Eddie this much after eight hours. 

Eddie says his name at the same time as someone else does, calling out “Buck!” in the crowded arrivals area; he snaps his head around, frowning—he’s here to work, but he’d declined the airport pick-up, not wanting to make small talk or feel like he was putting anyone out. But—

“Sophia,” he breathes, just before he has his arms full of her, wrapping his arms around her waist and lifting her off the ground. “What are you—shit,” he says, bringing the phone back up to his ear. “ _Eddie_.”

“Surprise,” Eddie says, and Buck loves him so much he could cry. “You left me your sister, so I thought I’d lend you one of mine.”

He’s torn, wants to keep Eddie on the phone and thank him a hundred times over for arranging this for him, wants to hang up and hug his sister-in-law properly and drag the whole story out of her. 

“Go,” Eddie says, chuckling, before Buck has a chance to say anything. “Take care of her. Don’t let her pay for anything, okay?”

“I love you,” he says, and fuck, he’s choking up. “Eddie—”

“I know, baby,” Eddie says. “Maddie and I are going out on the boat tonight so I’ll be out late but I’ll call you before I go to bed. Love you.”

“I love you,” he says again, and hangs up with a smile for the first time that day. Sophia’s still under his arm, jabbing away at her phone, and she holds it out a second later, camera screen up; he keeps grinning as she takes a picture, then kisses her temple for the next. “Soph,” he says, “you have no idea how much this means to me.”

“Means to you?” she asks, sliding her phone in her pocket. “My brother sent me out here on an all-expenses paid vacation—no husband, no kids, just you and me and a good time, baby. This is as much for my benefit as it is for yours.” She squeezes closer to him for a second. “But it’s my official job to keep you cheerful in between all the swimming and tanning I’ll be doing, so let’s go to the hotel and grab a drink.”

“Sorry you’re forced to enjoy all this beauty with your third favorite Diaz,” Sophia says, tipping her head back against the tile surrounding the hot tub, idly swirling her prickly pear margarita. She rolls her head over and looks at him, arching an eyebrow and looking frighteningly like Eddie. “I _am_ your third favorite Diaz, aren’t I?”

“You’re my first favorite Williams,” he says, grinning. He loves her, he really does, but he still talks to Adriana weekly, a holdover from when she was in college and would call him nearly every night in a panic so he could double check her always correct homework. Sophia’s a constant presence in their lives from phone calls and texts, but with three kids, visits are rare and usually filled with so many other family members that he can only remember one time they’ve been alone for more than five minutes. 

“Wow,” Sophia says, dragging the word out. “Adri screws me over again, that’s just like her. I’m prettier though, right? I mean, come on. Give me something.”

“Sorry,” he says, “but no one is prettier than Eddie.”

Her laughter rings off the stucco buildings, loud and bright and happy. 

A cabin, he thinks. In the middle of the desert, these people want a cabin.

“We’ve always been emotionally connected to Vermont,” the woman tells him.

“How long did you live there?” he asks, reaching up to run his hand over the existing wooden beams on the ceiling. 

“Oh, we‘ve always lived in Tucson,” the man says, and behind him, Sophia snorts. “I’m sorry, Mr. Diaz, we haven’t been introduced to your—”

“Spiritual advisor,” Sophia interrupts, and Buck bites his tongue so he doesn’t laugh. “Mr. Diaz is _very_ committed to making sure no evil spirits linger in this space while he turns it into your dream home.”

Jesus Christ, he might have to kill her. 

But she clearly has a better read on his clients than he does, because the woman reaches out for her hand. “Oh, we knew you called to us for a reason, we felt your energy through the pages of Vermont Living. Let me show you the back room, I’ve always felt darkness there, perhaps—”

She winks at him as they lead her away, and he pulls out his phone to text Eddie before he starts taking measurements. 

**Buck:** ur sister is crazy   
**Eddie:** I’ve been telling you that for years. 

“You can’t go out in that,” he says, staring and—well, trying not to stare. Her legs go on for miles, he thinks, her proportions so different from Eddie’s long torso. “Wyatt will kill me. _Eddie_ will kill me.”

She sticks her tongue out at him, ruining the effect of her perfectly made-up face; he’s never seen her like this, short dress and high heels, hair loose and falling down in waves. “I’m married and a mother but I’m not dead, Buck. Time to go drink and have some fun.”

He holds the door open for her as she passes him. “I take it back,” he says. “You’re definitely the prettiest.”

“Aww,” she coos, and pats his cheek. “You’d pick me up if you saw me, right? I’m still one night stand material?”

“Absolutely,” he says, because he may be an idiot but he’s not stupid. “Just don’t tell my husband.”

She mimes zipping her lips and reaches over, unbuttoning the top two buttons of his shirt. “Roll up those sleeves,” she says. “I want everyone to be jealous of who I’m going home with tonight.”

The bar they’d chosen—The Red Garter—is dusty and just on this side of run down, the type of place Buck expected was saturated with smoke back in the 80s. He swears he can smell it seeping through the walls, through the cracks in the vinyl barstools. They drink watered down rum and cokes, sharing a plate of the worst nachos that Buck’s ever had while they wait to play; eventually, the table of middle-aged men behind them ask if they want to join them, and Sophia dithers, talking about how she hasn’t played in ages, how she can barely lean over the table with this dress on, but they finally settle on playing for a round of drinks. 

Buck’s not terrible at pool, but Sophia—he knows Sophia is good. Eddie mentions it every time they play in Burlington, how Sophia used to clean house when she went out to the bar, collecting enough in one night to pay her rent. So when she leans over the table and giggles when the shot goes wide, he knows exactly what she’s doing. He takes a picture, sends it to Eddie with a stack of dollar bills emoji, and waits. 

**Eddie:** I better not get a call from a jail.   
**Eddie:** Or a hospital. 

They leave with their bar tab paid and an extra $500 in Sophia’s hand, holding in their laughter until they get into the car and she starts throwing bills up in the air. 

“Let’s go to a movie,” she says when she’s empty handed and red-cheeked. “I haven’t been to a movie in ages. Stop by the store so we can sneak wine in.”

He doesn’t know what they watch; there’s a cop, everyone lives in space, and things are getting blown up. They laugh their way through it, sliding down in their seats to drink from the cans of wine Sophia had buried in her purse, and get kicked out for disrupting other patrons before he figures out what’s going on. 

He can’t believe he’s watching a crew demolish an airy, beautiful southwestern style home to put up fucking wood walls. 

He almost hates himself. 

The crew’s making fast work of it, which is good, because as much fun as he’s been having with Sophia, he’s not staying a single minute longer than he’d originally planned. Just long enough to do the design, supervise the demo, and get everything started on the remodel. He’ll spend the last day meeting with the interior designer the couple hired and shopping for a few key pieces himself, but he’s already looking forward to being done and stepping on the plane that will take him back home to his husband. 

“What kind of trouble are you two getting into today?” Eddie asks while he takes a break for lunch, stuffing carnitas tacos from a food truck into his mouth. 

“Dunno,” he says. “She said something about the spa at the hotel this morning, but she just texted an hour ago and said we were going out and it was a surprise. What about you and Maddie?”

“Uh,” Eddie says, and Buck grins. He knows that hesitation; it’s the _you’ll make fun of me so I don’t want to tell you_ pause. “Maddie wants to try out some paint and sip thing. I don’t know. I’ll humor her.”

Buck snorts. “Humor her? Eddie. We both know you’ve watched every episode of Bob Ross on Netflix about thirty times.”

“I hope Soph drags you out dress shopping,” Eddie says, and hangs up on him. 

Buck finishes his tacos before calling him back. “Love you,” he says, throwing the trash away and draining the rest of his drink. 

“Love you too, asshole.”

“They do it all the time in Texas,” Sophia says, and Buck bats her hands away when she reaches for another button.

“We’re not in Texas,” he says, “and I’m _not_ going line dancing with my shirt all the way unbuttoned. Half open is all I’m willing to do.”

“Oh, fine,” she says. “You look good anyway, you just need one more thing.”

He eyes her warily. “I’m not wearing cowboy boots.”

“Couldn’t break them in fast enough for tonight anyway,” she says dismissively, “although you would break a few hearts in a good pair of boots, I gotta say. Might be worth the pain, you know the first porn I caught Eddie watching had gay cowboys?”

“I did not,” he says, not bothering to hide his glee. “Tell me more. Can we get boots before we leave?”

Sophia rolls her eyes, reaching for a shopping bag on the bed. “Honestly, I can’t believe you’re not sick of him yet. What a bore. It’s always _I have responsibilities Sophia_ and _you better not be corrupting my husband, Sophia_.”

“He’s my favorite bore,” Buck says, grinning, and he takes the cowboy hat she gives him and sets it on top of his head, tipping it down. “Howdy, ma’am.”

“I’ll give you all the money in my bank account to never use that accent again,” she says, shaking her head. “Open your shirt and get on the bed, you can get your favorite bore all riled up.”

He can’t get the buttons undone fast enough. 

**Eddie:** What the fuck.   
**Eddie:** Oh my god, what did she tell you.   
**Eddie:** Buck. BUCK. 

He wakes up the next morning with a splitting headache, hungover, crashed out fully dressed on the couch in Sophia’s hotel room. He sits up and groans, immediately regretting it.

Sophia doesn’t look much better. “Christ, how much did we drink?” she says, palms pressed into her eyes. “I don’t even remember coming back here.”

He stumbles over to the bed and flops face down, burying his head into a pillow. “This is your fault,” he says, voice muffled. “I don’t remember anything past the bar singing _Friends in Low Places_.” He tries, vaguely recalls switching from beer to tequila, which—

“Give me your phone,” he says urgently, shooting upright and wincing. “Sophia, give it to me.” She gropes around the nightstand and a moment later it’s in his lap; he taps on the messages, finds Eddie’s name at the top, and—“oh, fuck, Eddie’s gonna kill me.”

She lifts her head from the pillow. “What happened? He has no room to talk, I remember how drunk he would get going out with his army buddies in between his tours.”

He presses play on the video and holds it out to her, watches the screen as she lays on the bar and balances a shot of tequila on her stomach and he leans over her. 

“In my defense,” she says, “I don’t remember a single second of that.”

“He’s going to be _murder_ me,” Buck says, groaning. 

She reaches over and pats his arm, grabs his hand and threads their fingers together. “Did I send that to Wyatt?”

“Just Eddie.”

“Tell him to keep his mouth shut when you call him.”

“I love you,” Buck says immediately, stretched out on his own bed, and Eddie laughs. “Are you mad?”

“I’m—not thrilled, and I’m not happy you two got so drunk that neither of you made any sense when I called, but I’m not mad, no. Did you at least leave the bar when I asked?”

Buck cringes. “I don’t remember you asking,” he admits. “Eddie, I’m sorry, we won’t do it again.”

“Good. Is Sophia okay? Did you check on her?”

“Slept on her couch, she’s fine,” he says. “I’m really sorry, Eddie.”

“You can stop apologizing,” Eddie says. “What’s the plan for today?”

“Don’t gotta be at the house until this afternoon, everything’s getting delivered this morning,” he says, “so probably the greasiest breakfast we can find and then trying not to die.”

Eddie laughs. “Drink water, okay? You guys should take it easy. Go to the spa or something.”

“You’re the best husband,” Buck says, closing his eyes. As much fun as he’s having with Sophia, he’d give anything to be laying in bed beside Eddie right now. He glances at the clock—he still has 45 minutes before he said he’d go back to her room so they could get breakfast, and—“hey, what are you wearing?”

“If you think I’m having phone sex with you after watching a video of you doing body shots off my sister, you’re dead wrong,” Eddie says, but Buck can hear the amusement in his voice, can see in his head how Eddie would shake his head with a grin. “Why, what are you wearing?”

“Oh, just this pair of cowboy boots,” he teases, kicking his legs out in front of him and pushing his boxers down. “Did you want me in anything else or are the boots alone enough?”

There’s a long pause and then Eddie says, “you know—they make these belt buckles—”

**Eddie:** Buck.   
**Eddie:** You better come back home with boots. 

“You know,” Sophia says, “I never imagined all this for Eddie.”

He takes his phone back, stares at the picture of Maddie and Eddie sitting together, identical grins on their faces as they hold up their canvas in one hand, a glass of wine in the other. God, he loves him so _much_ , he can’t do anything but stare and smile helplessly. 

“He was so—” Sophia stops. “He was such a happy kid,” she says. “Not the same as Chris was, but he was always running around, catching snakes in the backyard, making traps because he wanted a tarantula as a pet—caught one, too, brought it in the house, I thought Mom was going to kill him—and one of his favorite things to do was go to abuela’s and charm her into giving him extra sweets. He’d always share it with me and Adri, we’d hide in abuela’s closet and stuff our faces.”

Buck pulls the plate of hash browns closer, snagging a forkful and dipping it in ketchup before popping it in his mouth. He’s seen the home videos, Eddie running around like a whirlwind, all smiles and laughter—until suddenly, most of the videos featured him sitting sullenly in a chair, against a wall, arms across his chest even at ten years old. 

“Dad was hard on him,” Sophia says. “He didn’t mean to be, Buck, he just—that was the way he was raised. I know you guys have problems with them and I get it, we just—sometimes it’s like we have different parents. I had it worse than Adriana, and Eddie had it worse than both of us. I mean, fuck, they never demanded rights to my kids, even when Wyatt was gone half the year working and I needed help. But Eddie took it so hard, took everything to heart, and—it’s nice to see him this happy.”

It has little to do with him, he knows; Eddie’s happier with him, he knows that, but he also knows that Eddie was putting in the work to be happy before they even met. He might have added to it, but he’s not the reason. 

Sophia twirls the straw around in her drink and looks up at him, a soft, gentle expression that reminds him so much of Eddie that his chest aches. “I will always, _always_ be grateful to you for seeing how amazing he is.”

The fireplace is one of the only features he builds himself, spending a whole day arranging stones in the right order before starting the painstaking process of assembling it the next day, still hungover, Sophia on the couch behind him. 

“Pedicure,” she says, and he nods. 

“Definitely a pedicure. You know Eddie likes getting them? We go once a month back home. When Chris was little he used to let him pick out polish sometimes and he’d come home with neon orange toenails, or blue and yellow stripes.” He laughs as he sets a stone into place, pushing it firmly against the board. “God, it was terrible. Chris finally stopped thinking it was cool when he hit ten or eleven.”

“He’s such a loser,” Sophia says, and Buck grins at her fond tone. “Do you prefer a Swedish massage or hot stone?”

“Hot stone,” he says. “Hey, do they do those seaweed wraps? I want one of those.”

“Sounds perfect,” she says. “I’ll sign us up.”

**Eddie:** See, Maddie and I can have fun, too.   
**Eddie:** image.jpg

He’s pretty sure he’s seeing things. He rubs at the screen, checks again that it’s from Eddie, and stares. 

“What is it?” Sophia asks, leaning over in her massage chair. “Is everything okay?”

“They got tattoos,” he says, blinking again. “Eddie and Maddie. They got tattoos.”

“God, how stupid is it?” she asks, reaching out for the phone. “Did he cover that awful one on his arm—flowers? My brother got _flowers_ tattooed on his shoulder? What are these, daises? How drunk do you think he was?”

“They’re asters,” he says, looking at the picture again, the simple black linework. 

Sophia narrows her eyes. “Exactly how sappy is the story you’re about to tell me?”

“I got them for him on our first date,” he says. “That was nine years ago, I can’t believe he even remembers that.” He takes a deep breath in, willing his eyes to remain tear-free, but they slip out the corners and he laughs. “I know this is so stupid and pathetic, it’s only been a few days, but I miss him.”

“Buck,” Sophia says, reaching for his hand, “it’s sweet. It really is. But you’re right, it’s also really pathetic. You’ll make it another two days without him.”

“Yeah,” he says, “but I don’t want to.”

“God,” she says, laughing, “you really need to shut up.”

Eddie picks up on the first ring. 

“You’re up late,” Buck says, flipping the lamp off and settling down in the darkness. “I didn’t expect you to answer.”

“Yeah, well, it’s too quiet here,” Eddie says. “No one’s snoring in my ear, it’s unsettling.”

Buck smiles, jams a pillow under his cheek and pretends it’s Eddie’s shoulder. “I don’t snore.”

“Fine, no one is breathing loudly in my ear,” Eddie responds. “Making me sweat because their body temperature runs a hundred degrees hotter than normal and leaving drool on my shoulder.”

“Sounds like a terrible person to have in bed,” Buck says. “You should kick him out and have me come over. I could show you a good time.”

“Bet you could,” Eddie says. “Next time you’re in town, I’ll take you up on it.”

“Day after tomorrow,” he says, smiling. 

“Great, I’ll pick you up at the airport.” Eddie’s quiet for a minute and Buck stretches, yawning silently into the lonely room. “Hey.”

“Hey,” he says. “Gonna sleep now?”

“Keep the phone on,” Eddie says. “I miss you.”

“Aww, Eds, that’s so embarrassing,” he says, and Eddie laughs in his ear. “Sophia can’t believe you’re so sappy in your old age.”

“I’m not old.”

“In your aging years.”

“Fuck off,” Eddie says, laughing again. “I’m not the one who cried when Chris sent in his college applications. Bet you didn’t tell her that.”

“Slipped my mind,” he says. “I miss you too.”

“I changed my mind, I don’t miss you anymore.”

“Alright, I’ll hang up—”

“Buck.” Eddie sounds serious, and he hums in acknowledgement, closing his eyes. “Don’t leave again.”

“Won’t,” he says. “Sophia can come to Vermont if she wants to see me so bad.”

“What are we looking for?”

“Anything leather,” he says, running his fingers over a coffee table placed by the door, “camel colored, I think. And a solid bed frame. A hope chest, definitely.”

Sophia catches his hand as they make their way towards the sprawl of couches, swinging their arms in between them, her iced coffee dangling from her fingertips on her other side. “I still can’t believe someone bought a house in the desert and thought, yeah, let’s turn this into a cabin.”

He shrugs and tugs her down onto an overstuffed leather couch; she lands half in his lap, giggling. “I can’t believe they’re paying me so much to do it,” he says. “I could have done everything over the internet but they insisted I needed to come out here.”

“The darkness,” Sophia says, wiggling her eyebrows and pushing up. “I’m not feeling an emotional connection to this couch. Next. Did I ever tell you I used to want to be an interior designer?”

He allows her to pull him along, weaving their way through a maze of furniture as he quickly rejects most of them. “How’d you end up at the bank?”

“Didn’t go to college,” she says, shrugging. “Mom and Dad didn’t have the money for me or Eddie—well, they might have had it for Eddie but you know, he enlisted—Dad’s business really took off when Adri was in high school, so she was the first with a real shot. I started at the bank after high school and just—stayed.”

“You wanna go to college?” he asks, sitting in a leather armchair that she directs him towards. “Your brother can pay for it.”

She laughs. “I could pay for it at this point, especially since he’s covering the twins’ tuition. But I—I know I’m not too old, but I _feel_ too old, you know? And I like where I am, it’s a good place to work.”

“Well,” he says, “you’re always welcome to help me if you want to try it out. May says I just do the same things over and over if I’m on my own, but it did get me my own feature in a magazine, so I’m not doing too badly.”

She squeezes his hand. “Let’s go try out that other couch, I’m feeling called to it spiritually.”

“Your wife is beautiful,” the salesman tells him when he brings the tags up to the front, and he looks over his shoulder at where she’s flipping through a book of fabric swatches. 

“Yeah,” he says, grinning, “she is.”

“Well now I see why my brother married a white boy,” Sophia says, and he laughs. 

“You married a white boy,” he points out, finishing his tie and smoothing it down. There’s a bump in the knot still; he’s never been great at getting them right, too used to Eddie’s skillful fingers fixing him up on the rare occasion they dress up. 

Sophia comes up behind him, presses down on his shoulder until he sits on the edge of the bed and starts undoing the knot, pulling it apart easily. “I’ll be the envy of the restaurant when they get a look at you,” she says, starting to rework the knot.

“Pretty sure that’ll be me,” he says, and smiles up at her when she adjusts the tie one last time and presses a kiss to his cheek. “Wanna send a picture to Eddie?”

They pose for one outside the heavy wooden gate of the hotel, Sophia under his arm, hand on his stomach, and he sends it to Eddie with three fire emojis. 

The restaurant was recommended by the hotel, a steakhouse up on the ridgeline, the city spread out before them in the dusky twilight. They share plates and bites of food across the table, drink cocktails with ingredients Buck has never heard of, and as they finish their main course, she takes off her wedding ring and presses it into his palm with a wink before she stands up and excuses herself.

“Champagne, please,” he tells their waiter, flashing the ring with a grin. “Let’s hope she says yes.”

Sophia cries when he gets down on one knee, smile wide and trembling with laughter at the edges, throwing her arms around him and pressing a red-lipped kiss to his cheek as the owner brings them a slice of chocolate cake on the house. 

“I’ve never proposed to anybody before,” he says, scooping up a bite and holding it out to her. They take a selfie, overcome with laughter when she holds her hand up with the ring, sitting on his lap with her cheek pressed to his. He watches as she posts it to Facebook, and by the time they’re back at the hotel, stretched out in the hot tub, he has three texts from Eddie.

**Eddie:** Why’s my mom calling you a homewrecker.   
**Eddie:** What the hell did Soph talk you into.   
**Eddie:** Jesus Christ you two need a babysitter.

Sophia laughs for a solid minute when he shows her the screen.

Sophia’s flight leaves an hour before his, and he leans against the windows at her gate as she boards the plane, watching until it pulls back and rolls down the runway before he pulls his phone out and calls Eddie. 

Eddie’s gasping as he answers. “Hey. Shit, sorry—Maddie, hold on, it’s Buck.”

“You guys running?”

“Yeah, at the overlook.”

He winces. He’s never understood their obsession with trail running, especially not the overlook trail, which is a steep uphill climb with no give. “I’ll let you go. My flight boards in twenty, just wanted to say hi.”

Eddie curses. “I thought I had another hour,” he says apologetically.

“I have a layover in Dallas,” he says. “Call you from there?”

“Yeah. Sorry, Buck.”

“Is Ox with you guys?”

“Always.”

“Tell Maddie I said hi. Love you,” he says, waiting for Eddie to respond before hanging up and making his way to his gate. He scrolls through his photo album for a moment before choosing his favorite of the pictures he and Sophia had taken outside the airport and posts it along with some shots of the cabin: _great trip with my first favorite Williams._

“My flowers,” he protests, as Eddie drags him out of the car with a hand around his wrist, into the cover of trees just off the trailhead and pushes him against the thick trunk of a white pine. “Eddie—”

“I’ll buy you new ones if they wilt,” Eddie says. His mouth drags across Buck’s neck, biting down, hands working at Buck’s belt, fingers pulling his zipper down. “I can’t believe you wore the fucking boots.”

“I can’t believe you’re doing _this_ ,” he says, mouth open as Eddie sinks to his knees.

“Just shut up and fuck my mouth,” Eddie says.

Phone sex, while enjoyable, is nothing compared to the feel of Eddie’s wet, warm mouth around his cock, his hair sliding through Buck’s fingers as he thrusts slowly, hand around the back of Eddie’s neck. He tries to stay quiet, well aware that just because they were the only car in the lot doesn’t mean there aren’t people up on the trail, and as soon as the thought pops into his head he’s pulling Eddie against him with more force, imagining what they look like to an outsider, Eddie on his knees for him.

He doesn’t even realize Eddie’s touching himself until he looks down again and sees the way his arm is moving, sucks in a breath and twists so he can watch, words falling out of his mouth faster than can register what he’s saying, a long string of praise and encouragement and “fuck, Eddie, fuck, _fuck_ ,” as he comes, collapsing back on shaking legs, keeping his eyes on Eddie, stroking himself desperately. “You look so good,” he whispers, loosening his grip on Eddie’s neck.

Eddie rests his head against his hip and jerks, muffling his groan against Buck’s skin before pushing himself off the ground. They pull their pants back on, but before Buck has a chance to adjust his shirt, Eddie’s against him, arms wrapped around his waist and burrowing in like he does in the winter when he’s cold.

“I missed you,” Eddie says, kissing his cheek. “I’m glad you’re home.”


End file.
